Former Ravens running back Ray Rice hasn’t played in the NFL since 2013, but that hasn’t stopped him from feeling “for a fact I can make a team better.”
Rice’s belief in his ability to perform on the field hasn’t blinded him to the realities of his situation, however. Rice was released by the Ravens after the release of the video of him punching his now-wife in the face in an Atlantic City elevator and he didn’t play well in 2013, leaving two reasons why his attempts to get back into the league have fallen flat. Rice isn’t ready to say he’s done, but he realizes that the league may have made that decision for him.
“I’m training, but I’m more training for life,” Rice said, via NJ.com. “I think it’s safe to say that football ... I don’t want to ever say I’m giving up, because that’s never going to be me ... I’m happy. I’m in the best shape of my life, and I know if it doesn’t happen this year, it’s probably something I have to deal with. But you know what? It’s not the end of my life. I know that the window for playing is closing. But if my window closes, I’m going to make sure I open up a thousand more opportunities for kids, to give them an opportunity to pick up where I left off. That’s where I’m at. I’ve got three Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl. There’s a lot of people that can’t go out there and do what I did. But I don’t want it to end that way, it’s safe to say.”
Rice said that he expects football will remain part of his life and that he will spend part of the summer “telling my whole story” to college teams, something he did with Ravens rookies this offseason as well.
